‘Health & Fitness’ Archives
Mundraub
Sanna Akehurst profiles Mundraub.org, a company committed to mapping the nation’s publically available fruit… Starting life as a small blog with the support of around 100 faithful supporters, Mundraub.org has been busy building up an ever increasing database of trees and plants in public places around Germany that we, the general public, can apparently help ourselves to. According to Daniel Nielsen, one of Mundraub.org’s founders, the concept of helping yourself to Germany’s [...]
The Way Of Tea
Marian Ryan visits Runge & Graf and explains why tea could - or should - be the new coffee... Beat icon Jack Kerouac once described the memory-soaked Proust as “an old teahead of time”—given the seminal role of a pot of tea and some bits of madeleine in the opening of Swann’s Way—and encouraged aspiring writers to be the same. Though the hard-drinking Beat may have been speaking in metaphor, the link between tea and creative inspiration is an article of faith for Berlin tea [...]
Gardening in Berlin
Spring inspiring you to get green fingered? Sanna Akehurst shows us how to get our garden on... Ahh the sun is shining and it's time for me to plan my garden for this year. I scrounge seeds from anyone, and even keep seeds from fruit and herbs that I grew the year before. I've been saving loo roll centers all winter: cut them in half, stand them next to each other in a cat litter tray; fill them with potting compost and sow seeds according to desired effect. Set them on the [...]
Float Berlin
Ruth Michaelson spends some time alone in a dark, water-filled tank...with mixed results. While the idea of Slow Travel may be all about doing things at a leisurely pace, the un-practiced among us sometimes need a little assistance in the art of relaxation. Personally, the idea of having someone effectively shut me in a dark enclosed space for an hour, purely for the purpose of doing nothing at all sets my heart racing in such a way that might seem a little [...]
Potatoes Mutatoes
Photographer Uli Westphal has been documenting (and eating) Berlin's mutatoes, "the last survivors of agricultural diversity"... Since 2006, artist Uli Westphal has been collecting, documenting, and eating Berlin’s Mutatoes—the non-standard fruits, roots, and vegetables that can be found at the city’s farmers’ markets. His photographs form an archive of “these last survivors of agricultural diversity,” revealing an incredible variety of colours, curves, and contours. For [...]
14 Ways To Avoid Valentine’s Day in Berlin
Here at Slow Travel Berlin we believe in love. But while the city's lovers and romantics will find plenty of ways to enjoy Valentine's Day in the city, there are others who won't be drowning in roses and chocolate hearts. Ruth Michaelson offers 14 ideas for singles, incurable un-romantics and those simply not into love's most commercial event... 1. Visit a flotation tank. Even in Berlin the hustle and bustle of everyday life can get you down a bit, and sometimes a little respite [...]
Berlin’s Three Peaks Challenge
Kevin Braddock and Paul Sullivan take on the Berlin equivalent of the Three Peaks challenge... Successive waves of trauma, division and reconstruction have given Berlin’s outward character a dimension of the arbitrary that’s absent in cities with seemingly “finished” centers like Paris, London and New York. Such was the thrust of a topic embarked upon during a "Slow" walk with the artist Stephen Walter not so long ago to the Borsigwerke above Tegel Airport. Walter, who is in [...]
Vux
A Brazilian-inspired café offering vegan treats in Neukoelln… Despite having only been open for a year or so, Neukoelln’s Café Vux has earned itself a fantastic reputation. Located on a tranquil street parallel to busy Sonnenallee (near the Karl-Marx-Strafle U Bahn), its smart, white facade leaps out somewhat from the neighbouring grey buildings. If that doesn't grab your attention, the promises of “café, doces and salgados” on the sign outside probably will. Inside are [...]
Liquidrom
William Thirteen gets pampered at one of Berlin's most unique spas... Anyone who spends much time here soon realises that Berlin is the three-toed sloth in the zoo of European capitals. While the denizens of London and Paris race about their cities, pressing past each other like anxious antelope on a headlong rush to high-rent, fashionably-appointed dooms, Berliners are hard pressed to tear themselves away from that second Milchkaffee before happy hour - and then only to wander off to [...]
Volkspark Friedrichshain
Everyone loves a good park. Volkspark Friedrichshain is one of Berlin’s finest… Even by Berlin’s high standards, the Volkspark Friedrichshain stands out as one of the city’s special green spaces. Established a century and a half ago to commemorate the centennial of Frederick the Great's accession to the throne, it gives good history, swathes of Liegewiese (sunbathing areas), an abundance of leisure opportunities and more than its fair share of interesting landmarks. Casually [...]
